upWORDS: Baby & Toddler Program — Texas Children’s Hospital
My daughter and I were attending one of our bi-weekly feeding therapy sessions and her feeding therapist casually mentioned the upWORDS program to me. If you’re like me, you’d never heard of this program — I was intrigued so I asked a few more questions and she gave me a pamphlet that outlined the program and had a link for me to sign up if I was interested.
From very early on in my pregnancy, I knew I didn’t want my kid to be glued to a tv screen or tablet — especially not from a young age. As a nanny for several years, I’d seen the behavioral issues screen time had on little kids — more importantly, I’d seen the devastating affects screen time has on child development. One of the little kids I nannied for (2 year old) had his own iPad and would walk around ALL DAY LONG glued to YouTube Kids. This little boy had been talking, meeting his developmental milestones and loved to play outside. Soon after his parents introduced screens to him (with no limits at all), he had stopped speaking almost completely, wouldn’t respond to his name anymore, and never wanted to do anything else other than being on the tablet. He never wanted to play outside anymore or play with toys. It was heart breaking. He ended up regressing to the point of no longer speaking and ended up requiring speech therapy and other developmental therapies.
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I may lose you here but because of that experience, screen time became something that I really never wanted to introduce my kids to — especially during the first 3 years of life, as the first 3 years are the most important years for brain development. I’m not a naive person. I know that inevitably, my children will watch screens because that is just the world we live in. I have also, very occasionally, let my daughter watch some tv — but for the most part, we do not watch screens with her. We play inside & outside, we do puzzles, she plays with age appropriate toys, we play with magnetiles, or we are doing activities that stimulate learning — but most importantly, we read books. LOTS of books. From probably her 2nd week of life, I was reading books to her while she was in the NICU. Did you know that if you just read one book a day to your child from birth that they will have enjoyed over a thousand books by the time they are three? That’s pretty amazing. All that reading exposes your child to something they will need and use everyday of their life — language. I knew I was going to try my very hardest to make sure I read to my daughter daily and now as a 14 month old, she brings me books all day long to read to her. We likely ready 20-30 books a day. She can say 50+ words in both Spanish and English (we are a bilingual home). She also uses sign language daily (says more, thank you, ,please, sorry, hungry/eat, milk, & help). She will also use 2 word phrases (hi dog, bye dada). So when I heard about the upWORDS program, I really wanted to enroll her and continue to foster her love of reading and encourage her language development in any way possible.
So, what is upWORDS? It is Texas Children’s Hospital Community Benefit Initiative to educate families on the importance of talk. The upWORDS program is completely 100% free and uses the LENA Start™ curriculum. It consists of 14 one-hour sessions over four months where parents learn how to improve their child's early language. Parents measure progress between sessions with LENA System™ technology, which records speech at home for a day after each class (you’re able to do the recording whichever day of the week you’d like really.) Parents get reports on how much they’re talking, when they could talk more, and how much they’re growing with their baby. upWORDS seems to be a branch within the upSTART Community Programs in the greater Houston area. The mission of upSTART is to provide families and expectant families with children the tools, knowledge, services, and resources needed to help their children thrive. It is a community-based and evidence-based program that supports families with children with accessible early childhood education and intervention. If you want to read more about it, here’s the link: upWORDS Website
So, how did we enroll & get into the program? I filled out this form and one of their Patient Care Coordinators emailed me with a list of available class times/locations. I emailed her back with my preferred location and day/time of the week I wanted. They offer both in-person classes (free childcare is provided during the class) and virtual classes (the option I chose). About a month after, I received an email informing me or my instructors name, the class start date & zoom link, and the location I needed to go to to pick up the supplies I would need throughout the course.
What’s included in the materials bag? We picked up our bag at a local library who partner’s with the upWORDS program. (*NOTE: Not every family will pick their materials up at the library. It is my understanding that there a multiple ways families receive their materials — our’s just happened to be through the local library.)The bag included a LENA Start™ Parent Guide (English & Spanish), a laminated LENA page that includes 14 talking tips (front & back in English & Spanish), a vest for my daughter to wear after each session with a pocket that snaps on the front for the recording device, the recording device, a USB for the recording device, and 16 free books!
So, what do sessions look like (virtually)? As I’m writing this, I’ve only completed 2 of the sessions and will continue to update this blog on a weekly basis.
Week 1: We met through Zoom with our instructor who gave an overview of what the program is, what the items in our bags were, how to use the recording device, as well as how and where to take our device weekly to upload the recordings and how that whole thing works (more on this later). Each parent was given the opportunity to introduce themself and their child and share a little bit about how they discovered the program. We went over the course syllabus as well and the instructor discussed the attendance policies. We were advised to put the vest with the recording device on our child beginning that week (even though we hadn’t actually learned any techniques yet — I assume it is to get a baseline of the child language and eventually track their progress.
Week 2: We met through Zoom again for orientation. Throughout this session we discussed in depth the syllabus and what we will be learning throughout each session.
Week 3: Week 3 was Memorial Day, so we did not meet.
Week 4: This week we met virtually and each parent was given the opportunity to share their name, their child’s name, and one word that describes their child. After, we watched several videos that discussed brain development from age 0-3, the importance of talking to your children and why conversational turns are so crucial to language development in young children.
“Did you know that your child’s brain is making over 1 million neural connections per second?”
By the age of 3, a child’s brain has reached approximately 80% of its adult size. By the age of 5, it is estimated that approximately 90% of their adult brain is formed. Positive relationships with parents and caregivers help form those neural connections for our kids. What a privilege we have as parents and caregivers to children to be able to help form their language skills — and what a gift it is to be able to support their development throughout their lives.
So, what are ‘conversational turns’? Conversations turns refers to the back-and-forth exchanges between speakers in a conversation. While a child’s brain is making over 1 million neural connections per second ages 0-3 (faster than any other time in their entire life), they are slower to respond. It takes time for those connections to happen. Children thrive on “serve and return” actions — for example: when a baby coo’s or cries, caregivers respond. This is one of those positive relationships shaping the brains of our children. The back-and-forth communication no only builds strong emotional bonds but it also forms the foundations for skills like communication, self-regulation and motivation. In young children, it’s important to have these conversational turns where you say something, pause, and give them time to respond. Remember, their responses will likely take more time than if you were speaking with an adult. That’s ok. Speak, pause — and let them have some time to respond.
The videos we watched also discussed the importance of not sitting our kids in front of a tv or a screen. WHY? Because a television is not giving our children those opportunities for conversational turns. The tv or screens don’t pause to let the child respond. There is no human connection being built through a screen. We were encouraged to have those conversational turns with our children. We were encouraged to talk to them about our days, read with them and spend quality time with them — ultimately building those positive relationships with our children.
Week 5: We were unfortunately unable to meet due to an error with the Zoom call — we since have transitioned away from Zoom and are now using Google Teams. We were emailed a video to watch, and to be quite honest, I have not had the time to sit down and watch it yet. I will though, and I’ll let you know.
Week 6: This week we watched a video and discussed what talking tips the parent used throughout the video and how they could do better. I like these videos because they really do help me to think about how I’m talking with my daughter and how I can stimulate the conversation with her.